Robert Charles Howe (1954-2002) was the winner of The Saturday Evening Post’s first cover content in 1973, at age 18.
Howe was an admirer of Norman Rockwell, making a pilgrimage to visit the artist in 1972. He was largely self-taught, with just a year of formal training at St. Xavier College. In a profile of the artist in the Post, he said, “I want to portray everything as closely as I can to real life, but not to the point where it's mechanically done.” Howe would go on to create six covers for the Post during his career.